1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to scheduling tasks among multiple participants; and, in particular, to using current status data about a participant to schedule a future or executable task involving that participant.
2. Description of the Related Art
A number of software applications are available for scheduling collaborative tasks among busy members of an organization. For example, a commercial meeting scheduling application is available from Meeting Maker Inc. of Waltham, Mass., from Latitude of Santa Clara, Calif. (a subsidiary of Cisco Systems Inc. of San Jose, Calif.), LOTUS Notes from IBM Corporation of Armonk, N.Y., and Outlook from Microsoft Corporation of Redmond, Wash. For purposes of the following discussion, the term collaborative task includes any coming together of multiple parties for communication during overlapping time intervals, whether involving a meeting held in person, a task performed in person or involving remote communications, including communications of text, imagery, audio, video, multi-media, or data for network collaboration applications such as document preparation and games communications, or some combination of in-person meetings and remote communications.
Similarly, many different software applications are available for managing personal tasks, whether or not they involve collaborations with other persons. Many applications incorporate simple “task” or “to-do list” systems, which allow the user to enter a task description, be reminded of its deadlines, and track its completion. Microsoft Outlook allows task creation and tracking. In addition, tasks can be shared between multiple users, allowing any of those users to update the task status. There are also project management systems, such as Microsoft Project, which break complex tasks down into manageable personal tasks across a group of users and track the status of the tasks.
There has also been progress in integrating and sharing information among the various systems. For example IBM Workplace Collaboration Services, in conjunction with LOTUS Notes and Domino software, offers task management facilities. Microsoft Project can be integrated into Outlook now to provide real-time notification of task deadlines and task status.
All of these systems track several aspects of the task, but relatively few aspects of the person or persons performing the task. While suitable for many purposes, these systems suffer several disadvantages.
For example, many of these systems do not allow for persons to perform several tasks in the same time interval. Some tasks may require only partial attention, and leave a person able to perform some other tasks that require partial attention during overlapping time intervals. Some of these other tasks may be performed simultaneously, such as a routine physical activity and a passive mental activity. Some other tasks require specific communication mechanisms, like conference room resources or video facilities, other high bandwidth channels, a voice channel (e.g., cell phone), a text channel (e.g., instant message channel on a network connection or text messaging on a cell phone). Such tasks can only be performed when the communication mechanism is located with the person. Some tasks can be performed by the same person using one or more communications mechanisms for one task, and a different one or more communications mechanisms for a different task, during overlapping time intervals.
Another disadvantage is that some collaborative tasks are scheduled with best information available at the time of the scheduling. The actual current information may not agree with the earlier provided information. A person's ability to collaborate on a project changes, for example, because a communication mechanism not originally available to the person is made available. As another example, some persons accept tasks which they later do not perform and do not expect to perform or lose a communication mechanism to perform. Similarly, some persons accept meetings which they later do not attend and do not expect to attend. Many task and calendaring systems are unable to discover or make use of the actual current information in order to schedule, delay or initiate a personal or collaborative task. These systems tend not to inform one user of another's instant availability for purposes of a specific task, so collaborative tasks are not scheduled and executed opportunistically.
Based on the above, there is a clear need for a task management system that obtains and uses more comprehensive actual current information of participants involved in the tasks.